Adore
by jbirdpuff
Summary: A one-shot told through the meaning of flowers about the relationship between Viktor Krum and Hermione Granger during fourth year. I have ideas to continue it, but we'll see if that happens.


**AN: I have a certifiable weak spot for Fourth Year Hermione and Krum fics. This idea has been floating around in my brain for a while, so of course I just had to get it out. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything!**

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He was tall and broody and surprisingly sweet. He always sat down at her table in the back of the library and placed small flowers to the right of whatever book she had with her.  
The first time he did it she'd been mildly miffed.  
He'd set it down and gracefully slid into the seat across from her. By the time she'd looked up from the soft yellow petals of the sunflower he was hiding his face behind a rather large advanced Arithmancy book.  
Sunflowers. _Adoration_.  
She blushed. He couldn't possibly know the meaning. She'd studied a book on the meanings of flowers over summer holiday, and she doubted whoever was now sitting across from her new what this particular one meant. The next time she looked up he was staring at her over the top of book. Dark eyes. Recognizably crooked nose.  
Viktor Krum had just given her a flower.  
Under his attentive gaze she reached for the flower and pinched the stem gently between her fingers.  
"Do you know what this means?"  
It was only then that he gave up his pretense of reading and gave her a very serious look.  
"I adore you, Hermy-own Granger."  
That was when the miffed part came along.  
"It's Her-my-oh-nee."  
He smiled.  
She scowled.  
He came back the next day with a Blue Salvia and a gentle smile.  
For a moment she was a little giddy.  
He _thinks of me_.  
Then he sat down with his books and showed no sign of leaving. She would never admit that she had pressed the Sunflower carefully in the folds of her journal the night before. She picked the flower up when he wasn't looking and held it to her nose. She almost smiled. Then he looked up and she frowned and he blushed.  
That night she pressed the flower carefully on the next page.  
For weeks he showed up with flowers and soft smiles and silence.  
Then it was time for the first task, and she was so nervous for Harry (and Viktor, but she refused to admit it) that she snuck to the champions tent.  
At first it was all about Harry, but then Viktor had followed her out after she'd been run out by that cow, Skeeter. The flower she'd spent all night conjuring to get just right weighed heavily in her pocket.  
They just stood there looking at each other. Then simultaneously pulled out white myrtles.  
_Good luck_.  
He beamed and she gave him a shy smile. When they handed them off he wrapped his large calloused fingers around her hand and kissed her palm.  
"Good luck, Hermy-own." She tilted her head and he continued. "For friend."  
When she looked back she thought this might've been the exact moment she gave in to whatever was happening with Viktor Krum. She essentially melted.  
"For Harry?"  
She had been a nervous wreck all morning, and this was the tipping point. Her eyes watered and she turned her hand around to squeeze his fingers.  
"It vill be dangerous. I vorry for young Harry Potter."  
She'd been like a woman possessed when she'd reached up and kissed him on the cheek.  
"Good luck, Viktor." Then she panicked and pulled away and started to turn when he stopped her with his eyes. He was smiling more than he had ever before. She could see the happiness in the wrinkles by his eyes.  
"I worry for you too." The words fell out of her mouth and her face was so warm she thought she would explode, but he just smiled more.  
She ran away for real this time.  
A few weeks later he asked her to the Yule Ball with a Daffodil.

_New Beginnings._  
She said yes.  
She was almost smug when everyone joked that she was lying about having a date. Then she thought about how this sweet, wonderful, and new thing would be public knowledge after the ball and she'd go back to being a mess of nerves.  
When she'd met him outside the Gryffindor dorms after everyone had already gone down, he couldn't stop beaming at her, and she felt truly pretty for the first time in her life. He wrapped a corsage made of calla lilies around her wrist and kissed the back of her hand.  
"_Beautiful_, Hermy-own."  
He distracted her from all the looks she got all night. She couldn't remember ever smiling so much.  
Then Ron had yelled at her.  
When Viktor found her crying on the steps he'd been so startled he'd dropped the two glasses of punch he'd been holding. She couldn't even look at him.  
He'd reached for her chin, held it tightly, and said, "Don't let them see you cry, krasivo."  
Then he took her outside and kissed her on a snowy bench. She was cold and sad, but it was _perfect_.  
Before she'd gone back into the common room he had taken out his wand, and conjured a sprig of edelweiss. He tucked it behind her ear.  
_Courage and Devotion_.  
It was only after the second task that he said with serious words and no flowers how he felt.  
"I've never felt this vay about someone before."  
Then she'd jumped up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him right there in front of everybody.  
When she'd pulled away he'd smiled and asked quietly, "Visit me this summer, Hermy-own?"  
She'd grinned and said, "Of course." Then he was leaning down and giving her small kisses on the corner of her mouth.

After that an air of finality had reached their relationship. Every conversation felt like the last. Every kiss a goodbye.

Before the third task she'd shown up with a bundle of Yarrow and him a bouquet of red roses.

They hadn't needed to say anything.

_Love._

They _loved_ each other.

Then Cedric Diggory was killed and Harry had seen Voldemort and everything was falling apart.

Harry needed her.

Right before he boarded the ship to leave for Durmstrang she'd handed him a Cyclamen, and his lips had turned down into an expression she'd never seen before. Despair. Disappointment. Heart break.

He knew what she intended without even looking at her resigned and teary face.

_Goodbye_.


End file.
